Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker has volleyed another shot across the bow of the administration:
THE GRAY ZONE: How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib
I can't do this article justice by summarizing or excerpting from it. I recommend that you read it all.
Newsweek has its own investigation into how the Iraqi prison abuses came to be:
The Roots of Torture: The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to fight a new kind of war
Indeed, the single most iconic image to come out of the abuse scandal—that of a hooded man standing naked on a box, arms outspread, with wires dangling from his fingers, toes and penis—may do a lot to undercut the administration's case that this was the work of a few criminal MPs. That's because the practice shown in that photo is an arcane torture method known only to veterans of the interrogation trade. "Was that something that [an MP] dreamed up by herself? Think again," says Darius Rejali, an expert on the use of torture by democracies. "That's a standard torture. It's called 'the Vietnam.' But it's not common knowledge. Ordinary American soldiers did this, but someone taught them."
Thanks to Machine Samba for the Newsweek link.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any link made to abuses within US prisons and other institutions of structured violence. KCRW's To The Point did a show looking into the US prison system, though I don't think the format allows for a comprehensive job. Still, it's better than nothing. Here's the blurb:
Americans have been shocked by revelations of the abuse of Iraqi detainees at the hands of US troops. Politicians from the President on down have called the abuse "un-American" and "inconsistent with American values." There have been hearings, reports, apologies and inquiries, but what about abuses closer to home? How widespread is mistreatment of those behind bars in America's overcrowded prisons?? Are privately run prisons part of the problem? How do America's criminal justice policies affect prisons and prisoners, and how do those policies differ from European practices? Why aren't Americans as outraged about what goes on in US prisons as they are about abuse in Iraq?
The answers: Yes, what about them? Pretty widespread. Yes. Greatly, greatly. Because they're fucking sheep!
